


No Body to Love

by SunnyMae



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, I meant humor lightly, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, ghost!Gabe, i genuinely don't know whats gonna happen, jack with ptsd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-01-15 04:01:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12313362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyMae/pseuds/SunnyMae
Summary: A ghost trying to feel human, a man feeling like a ghost, and an apartment barely big enough for one of them.A Halloween fic featuring a haunted apartment, while also answering the question of why ghosts are always so angry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WHY ARE GHOSTS ALWAYS SO ANGRY?

Gabriel knows things are off in his planisphere. He knows a mirror even if he’s not in it. He knows his arms should bump into furniture when he wanders through. He knows the windows should show the outside, and an open door should let him out, and his neighbors should check when he screams.

He understands what this means.

Gabriel’s a ghost and somewhere, somehow, he died.

It’s not the dead part that gets to him, it’s the dying part. Because fact: he’s dead, but it's the questions in between the living and the nonliving that irritates him. How did he die? Where’s his body? Did he deserve it? Do the good die young or is he the exemption? Is he actually very very old? The answer sits heavy on the tip of his tongue. When he tries to figure out, his frustration manifests into something real and the problem arises.

Nothing too Poltergeist, he’s admittedly like a ruffled cat. A strong cat.

His first roommate barely occupies the home. His name is Tyrone and he moves out faster than he moves in.

Gabe is still new to his mood swings. As a result, he’s angry, so angry, and Tyrone complains about each mess constantly to the landlord. He claims there must rodents or robbers because his items mysteriously ended up on the floor. When he shatters a window trying to escape, not an hour passes before Tyrone decides to leave.

Gabe can’t recall how long he lives there. He just knows the man left with his boxes half opened.

 

The next one lives like a flash. She’s in and out constantly throughout the day. Emily, the second tenant since Gabe’s haunting, unpacks her large suitcase and sleeps on an rolled out mat. She always leaves the light on because every few hours, she’s up and about.

Emily has no schedule while at home. Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she’s on her phone, and mostly she’s getting ready to leave. He likes catching her when she realizes she forgot an item. She’ll rush out of the apartment with her shoes untied and rush back in before the door shuts.

When she cooks, she burns everything and eats it with a grimace.

“Your oatmeal’s done.” Gabe once tries to call into the bathroom as Emily decides now is the appropriate time to shave her legs. It’s a silly thing he does mostly for himself. He knows she can’t hear him because Gabe’s a ghost because somewhere, somehow, he died, but how how howhowhow—

He snaps out of it when the smoke alarms ring. Fortunately, Lena doesn’t notice the overturned cups from his brief panic. Instead she focuses on dumping the pot into the sink while he hovers despairingly near the still-on oven.

She salvages the surviving oats on a paper plate and forces it down with salt.

 

When she moves on to God-knows-where, Gabe misses both of them with a burning as the new tenants lives in. The three college friends are nightmarish and the cops come several times. The only positive is they’re usually too high or too drunk to notice Gabe when the noise irritates him.

They have tons of junk altogether. It’s so cramped in the one bedroom apartment that Gabe doesn’t know where to go without feeling invasive. And that pisses him off too, feeling like an intruder in his own home. He wants to shrink into a corner as much as he wants to fill the apartment until nothing exists except for him. Then they would notice him.

On the flipside, he learns he can create static on television screens with little effort. It’s funny watching them groan as their stories are interrupted.

Their apartment is more trashed than lived in by the time the landlady kicks them out.

With the fourth group, which is an immigrant family of four, he finds himself listening more than thinking. They’re squished within his walls and still learning the rules of it all—alien and frustrated just like him.

The parents rarely speak a word of English inside. The two kids switch between the two effortlessly. He learns that he knows Spanish. When their parents left them alone, gone to see if the American dream existed, Gabe would watch them as an impromptu babysitter.

He wonders if they live in a sketchy part of towns, but he knows better than to look out the window. He’d look and lose track of time. Sometimes days. If someone malicious did come, ghost or not, he knows one thing. He’d kill ‘em.

The first time he watches them, Olivia the eldest turns the dial on the radio until she hears a rapidly speaking woman. The radio crackles as she laughs, talking about men and their antics, and a song with reggae roots plays.

“I don’t know if I was a good guy,” Gabe says to them in Spanish, “I’d like to think I was.”

They can’t hear him and he’s fine with that. He talks to them over the sounds of the radio. He notices that if he wanders to close, the radio sputters, so he pretends to sit on their couch as they crowd the box on the floor.

Gabe also likes to sit in on their family meals, though the tiny apartment doesn’t afford the comfort of privacy. As tired as their parents look, they grin and joke with Olivia and Pilar.

Evita cooks with what little they have, but what she makes, the children enjoy.

From watching her, he learns to make large meals on a budget.

Session by session, little things about cooking from his past life reveals itself. He looks over the ingredients and remembers an easy omelet she could make. She makes tamales and there is something intimately familiar about it.

Maybe one day, he’ll remember whose kind smile and soft hands is associated with the memory of this food. He hopes it’s his mother’s.

“Each bite tasted like heaven.” He laughs to himself and rubs the scruff of his neck. It isn’t that he feels silly about talking into the air, because that awkwardness has long since passed. Instead it feels nice, like his words matter again.

Every time he watches Evita cook, he feels pieces of himself coming back.

 

One day long after they’ve settled, (Gabe can recognize the growth of the children. Pilar brings home friends, Olivia brings home broken tech) the father falls while alone. It’s Sunday and Evita brings the kids to go grocery shopping. Ander, however, chooses to sleep in.

When he wakes up and slowly heads to the bathroom, he crumples into the wall.

“Fuck!” he rasps out, desperately clutching his chest. Ander continues to curse in Spanish as he shakes.

He grips at his chest, panting and wildly looking around. But his eyes land on Gabe and and…

He sees Gabe. Gabe, who is standing in the kitchen.

“Who—get help! Quickly” He begs, and Gabe startles. Ander begins huffing, and Gabe dashes towards him.

He reaches forward and cannot touch the man. He remembers it’s because he’s dead and he’s filled with the same bright anger he constantly had when Tyrone lived here. This father of two girls, and the first to see him, will die and Gabe can only watch.

But in the red haze that swarms him like swamp mosquitos, he hears a clutter. To his left, the phone has fallen to the carpet. His vision becomes clear enough that he can read the numbers. He reaches to it and knocks it closer to Ander.

Ander barely focuses his strength to punch 911 with trembling fingers but it’s enough. He looks up at Gabe, his voice fading due to the tremendous pain as he rasps into the phone. Ander cries in pain and now relief, and Gabe tries to calm him.

“You’re going to be fine. Don’t worry, just breathe. Everything will be alright,” he keeps talking, even after Ander’s eyes drift away from him.

 

An ambulance comes and takes Ander away. The first responders do not see Gabe trying to comfort him.

Gabe sits in the apartment alone, wondering how. He tries to touch the phone with intent but he can’t, like always. He runs his fingers across all the trinkets in the house, fury building inside his stomach once more, until his hands catch a frame and send it to the ground.

The broken glass above the smiling faces of the Montoya family glares forebodingly.

A few hours later, the wife enters with red rimmed eyes. She doesn’t mind the broken frame, just picks it up and checks around for loose glass. Evita swiftly moves through the house, adept in her search for overnight items to bring back to the hospital.

“I hope he’s okay.” Gabe tells the back of her head as she searches the cabinet. He’s crying and when he looks down, his tears fall through the floor.

 

Ander returns from the hospital, though not all is well. The two parents often sit at their kitchen table, usually arguing. Only arguing when their daughters are tucked in bed.

They move out soon afterwards because the medical bills become overbearing. Gabe is sad to see them go, and he wants to follow them. They have given him so much during their time here. Too much.

He has memories old and new that he doesn’t know what to do with.

Ander is the last one to leave. He has a stuffed suitcase in one hand, and the keys dangling from the other.

“Hello?” he calls into the empty room, including Gabe. Everything’s packed or sold, except for Gabe. “Thanks.” He murmurs, looking embarrassed.

“You’re welcome,” and the door shuts.

 

The landlady, a silver-haired woman called Ana, tours the next occupants. It’s a young French couple.

“What happened to the last tenant?” one of them asks. She doesn’t seem the least interested in the apartment, choosing instead to look at her phone. They’re standing beside the doorway while Gabe watches from the kitchen. He feels protective of this apartment now. Whoever owns this apartment also has him. He doesn’t get to choose where he stays, but he wants to choose who stays with him.

“Oh, poor things, they couldn’t afford the rent anymore.” Ana frowns, upsetting the wrinkles in her face. Her blind eye is hidden by an eye patch while the other looks away.

Gabe remembers her bringing cookies for the children on several occasions.

“That’s it?” she asks. There is a disregard in her voice that Gabe does not care for. “Nothing weird?”

“Well,” the landlady pauses, uncertain if the additional information would help or hurt, “they said there’s a guardian angel here. Apparently someone called the police when the husband had a heart attack. However when the ambulance came, there was no one here.”

“It could’ve been someone passing by.” She suggests. Hope shimmers in her eyes, both her partner and she are more attentive than ever.

“Impossible,” Ana shakes her head, “we have security cameras pointed through this hall. No one came in or out.” Tyrone would complain about the cameras. After most of Gabe’s rampages, he would insist they were broken.

The couple share a look, and redirect the questions to the bathroom. But Gabe has the queasy feeling that they’ve already made up their mind.

 

“Are you sure something’s here?” The man with gelled hair asks. He’s tall and stringy. He trails behind her, almost lost, as they explore the space.

Amelie, beautiful and tall, nods as she caresses the walls. Gabe walks to her, hoping to anything she’s not bluffing.

“’Hello?” He says.

Although she does not respond verbally, she shivers. “Yep, something’s definitely in here.”

_Something?_

They begin to exchange whispers, protecting their secrets from him. The acknowledgment feels nothing like when Ander looked at him, or when Olivia shook the radio, or even when those college kids threw cigarette butts at their television.

 _Someone,_ he thinks, _I am someone._

 

A handful of days after claiming the apartment, they set up a table with two chair across from each other. There’s an indigo satin sheet they drape over their plastic table. When night falls, they light candles and hum words he can’t understand.

The display is frightening. It reminds him of shitty movies like the Exorcist series.

“Presence, reveal yourself!” the woman calls out. Something in her tone snaps something in Gabe. His vision blurs and he can’t control himself. He knocks a candle over when his arm flails and he curls it back into himself.

“Be careful, it’s powerful.” Gerard says.

 

It.

 

The night ends disastrously.

Gabe can’t remember most of it but he didn’t enjoy the absolute fear in the couples’ faces. There’s blood on the wall tablecloth when something (A candleholder? A quartz cluster?) hit Amelie in her smug fucking face.

Something malicious grows in his heart and Gabe’s afraid of it.

He can’t hear anything outside of the apartment, but he knows they’re regretting him somewhere. They fled the apartment, but not before pouring salt in the doorway to keep him locked in. As if he could leave in the first place.

Gabe wants to leave, wants to find somewhere new, because he doesn’t want to be trapped and he doesn’t want to be a ghost and he doesn’t want to be _dead—_

 

Ana comes back in some time. He doesn’t know how long, as always. The couple has not returned since their séance. She cleans up the candle wax sticking to the walls wearily. The broken chairs and table are also removed with the help of the neighbors.

He watches as multiple people wander in and out of the apartment. She tours more potential candidates, and a frequent number of them are curious about the ghost of apartment room 324.

Most of them don’t show any interest in actually living in the apartment and her excitement cobbles down with every new supernatural enthusiast. It’s to the point where her manners disappear and she blatantly refuses to answer any questions unrelated to the apartment with a tight frown.

She no longer subtly curves away from the subject, but puts a hand up and says, “I will not entertain these questions."

 

A small group of idiots move in. The Ghostfinders as they call themselves, and not so much as move but camp in the apartment. They’re clowns with chunky cameras, and Gabe already knows this won’t end well.

They attempt to squat at first, but the neighbors quickly call an end to their bullshit.

Ana cuts a deal however, because the apartment has been empty for too long. They agree to pay two months' worth of rent even though she knows they’ll be gone within a week. This is not how she wants her rooms used, this is not what she wants her building to be known for, and the fellow tenants agree. The Ghostfinders are loud and uncaring. They stomp around with boots over carpet and the front door is propped open so their noisy equipment constantly becomes a headache for neighbors.

She deserves the Montoya family with their honest love and respect for their home.

He tries to control himself, disgusted by the idea of being entertainment.

They’re excited to find evidence of his existence with their beeping machines. But mostly they amuse themselves with apparent facts that Gabe hadn’t known himself. Like he is actually two ghosts, lovers, who drowned in the tub.

It’s funny until they suggest Ana is covering up the double suicides.

By the second night, when he has a camera and light pointed in his direction (as if they couldn’t do this during the day), he goes berserk and breaks their equipment.

Gabe is not a trick. They’re scared just like the first couple, and he learns he is one thing.

A monster.

 

They try one more to communicate with him, except eradicate would be more accurate. A priest is brought in, who babbles in Latin and moistens the walls with a spray bottle. Gabe injures one of the Ghostfinders severely.

Fortunately, there are enough people to call an ambulance for him.

The number of tourists interested in the apartment dwindle down. Passersby are forbidden after the incident. He’s alone for most of his days except for the brief moments the landlady wanders through for maintenance. Ana mostly vacuums the carpet and dusts the blinds. He enjoys the quiet more when she’s there.

He feels grounded that way. When he’s alone, the apartment turns into a void and he blanks out. Time becomes stagnant and he is an infinite being trapped within a finite mind.

One day Ana uses the stove to make herself tea. The oven is old enough to need some TLC as the burners cough flames, but Ana is definitely familiar with the antiquity.

She sighs and sits on the floor, the cup balanced on her knees. She looks to the ceiling, almost pleadingly.

“Hello? I don’t know if this place is haunted…so maybe I’m being silly. But I’m bringing someone in tomorrow. He’s not like the rest of these _hebel_ I brought in. He’s a friend of mine from my military days. He’s a little rough but a sweetheart, I promise. Please, please behave yourself. He needs the stability and I think… if you’re still here, you do too.”

She hesitates before pulling her hidden locket out from under her shirt. She kisses it gently, and Gabe pretends it is meant for his cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally a much much darker deanbenny spn fic but it's getting retrofitted so ill finish it before i die


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day one/two.

The friend is a middle aged man named Jack. He’s blond but graying, muscled like a pound cake, and owns a face scarred worse than Ana’s. When he speaks, Gabe almost dies twice, taken aback by the deep rasp. He decides on the apartment after one walk through. Jack hugs her gently on their goodbye, and openly enjoys the strength in her returned embrace.

He is, if Ana’s to be believed about the good heart, the perfect human being.

But Gabe likes him a whole lot more because of the look in his eyes; it’s the same look the Ander had when he watched his children. Jack gets the look immediately after locking his door. He stares from the shallow entry way, and he can tell he’s grateful for every inch of this tiny apartment.

The best part is his vigilance. He shoos away the neighbor who shows up at his doorway to subtly chat about weird noises. He checks the locks, and double checks the deadbolt. He shakes the windows to make sure they can’t open, even though they’ve been stuck since the Montoyas. He keeps the blinds barely open and now Gabe doesn't worry about hyper fixating on the outside. It’s quick and methodical, and he sweeps through the apartment twice.

This apartment is his now, and with it comes Gabriel, so the look encompasses him too.

 

He strips when nightfall comes and shirtless Jack has story.

He has an old school tattoo spanning his pecs of a rifle on top of the United States flag. The ink is faded but still completely distinguishable on the pale skin. It’s cheesy and it makes Gabe crack up for a solid minute when he first sees it.

His neck up is a shade darker than the rest of him, as are his square hands. A necklace with a dog tag and a cross constitutes his only jewelry. Jack never pauses to look at them. Never glances down or touches them gently.

It seems like he’s avoiding them altogether.

The scars are another story. They scatter across his body, especially towards the front of his legs. He never hesitates at picking at them. They probably took a while to heal since Jack evidently made a habit of touching.

There’s a line that stretches horizontally across his back and it’s Gabe’s favorite. It lies a few inches below his shoulders, and his shoulder freckles seem to end just there. It’s like the horizon to a meteor shower.

This man, Gabe privately decides, is otherworldly—maybe a fellow ghost but with a physical body.

The burn scars climbing up Jack’s feet and calves Gabe thinks about often. The skin is discolored and wrinkled, but looks soft to the touch.

A few hours after he moves in, he rings up a set of people. He takes a seat against the wall where his phone charges. He rubs his ankle and calls up the first person. Who ever it is, is excited. High pitched voice chirps in his ear as he smiles.

It’s a different smile than the one he gives Ana, now less reserved in his new home.

“No, she was exaggerating, it’s a good place. Suspiciously good for the price.” He pauses and then huffs at the replying chirps, amused.

“No, honest. The place is nice. There isn’t much traffic outside, the building is quiet, and there hasn’t been a murder in months.” He then laughs properly from the person’s response. It rings pleasantly through the empty apartment.

“There’s no ghost, c’mon. Even if there is, the scariest person here will always be Ana.”

It’s boring stuff from that point forward, it’s him listening and occasionally commenting on a story his friend told. His free hand moves from his legs and into his hair before it stills on the carpet for the majority of the conversation.

He then calls Angela. Gabe knows it’s Angela because he sighs her name aloud, almost resentfully, before dialing. The fingers rubbing his scars pause when the other line picks up but jerks back into motion in the middle of their conversation.

“Yeah, feel free to visit. Soon, for your own sake.” He talks with Angela about visiting the local VA clinic soon, more leaning towards a group session but he’d find more details from Ana. He becomes tenser as the conversation continues. His tone is positive but his face is tired. The relief is palpable when he hangs up.

He calls Reinhardt next. He perks up immediately when the receiver picks up. Gabe hears Reinhardt’s voice jovially yelling through the phone. “The apartment wasn’t a bust-”

He’s cut off by the voice. Gabe finds it hard to distinguish through the static and the apparent accent. Jack doesn’t, however, grinning to himself.

“I don’t know how to answer that. Ask her yourself.” And Jack teases him about the years long will-it or won’t-it between Ana and this mystery caller. It’s his favorite conversation to listen into, learning more about Ana as the heartbreaker instead of just the landlord.

 

The day after moving in, he wakes up before his alarm clock rings and stretches out like a cat. The thick line of his shoulders catch the moon light struggling through the blinds. Jack languidly stands before snapping back to business. He runs his routine before he hurries into the bathroom.

He showers quickly—not that Gabe watches, he’s never peaked on any of the tenants—and brushes his teeth so forcefully that Gabe worries for his gums. He dry swallows a compartment from his 7-day pill organizer, and hides all his item back into the medicine cabinet.

He murmurs under his breath often. Sometimes it’s reminders, sometimes it’s conversations, and sometimes it’s a tune. A niggling in the back of his mind tells Gabe he knows plenty of songs but he can’t recall a name.

Jack shrugs on an uninspired henley and jean combo before leaving. Not before audibly locking, unlocking, and then relocking the door. It’s boring without Jack to observe. He can’t even rut around his things since Jack has even less than Emily did. When he had initially entered with a duffle bag on his shoulder and a backpack curving his back--that was it. All of his items were tucked away and he couldn’t just shove his head into the bags. Gabe’s ghost senses didn’t include night vision.

Regardless, he doesn’t enjoy these little ghost powers. He prefers to walk through door ways instead of that brief moment of darkness in the insulated walls. He’d also prefer not to hover, but this option is less preventable.

He hovers over the neatly made mat and pretends to lay on it instead. He could never manage to trigger a memory for sleeping. Gabe didn’t completely understand how those worked, but he figured sleeping should be one of them.

He lies like this, weightless and staring at the ceiling, and counts the bumps until he’s lost in time again.

 

Jack brings home a few bags of food, mostly non perishables. The other items appear home cooked. The clear glass travel mug reveals tea and he figures Jack visited Ana as well as the store. He strips down to his boxers and folds his clothing into an emptied plastic bag. Gabe sincerely hopes this is the norm. JHe fixes a meal with the cans stacked together on the counter. He doesn’t cook with the same love or skill as Evita, but more like he’s making rations.

(In a few weeks, Gabe will see he’s wrong. There is love and skill in the mechanical way he moves. It may not be tender, but his body always cooks with purpose, with life. There is no difference between microwaving beans and hot dog as there is when he makes muffins with Ana. He’ll measure flour quick but precisely, just as he never goes over a second from the recommended microwave time for his canned spinach.)

The word rations echoes in his mind. He was in the military, wasn’t he? Why would he have eaten rations? What did he eat? The tip of the tongue sensation stays with him instead as he intently watches Jack rip apart bread for the soup he had heated.

But the irritation builds even as he tries to pretend it doesn’t matter. His chest is becoming tight with disgusting familiarity, even when he keeps telling himself it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he was in the military, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’tmatter, hedoesn’tmatter--

 

The cans clatter on the floor but what wakes him is Jack backed into a corner. The formidable body moving so quickly as it stumbles back startles Gabe back to himself.

His breathing is quick and sharp like a scared animal, and Gabe doesn’t know how to help. He tries to reign in the feeling of helplessness because it sure as fuck isn’t going to help now. Not with Jack cowering, face flushed, and body frozen except for the shallow rabbit breaths.

But the monster in him doesn’t back down, rearing its ugly head higher until Gabe is the one to retreat. He flees from the room, trespassing through the walls instead to hide in the bedroom. There is nothing to destroy there and the worse of his panic causes the sleeping bed to move an inch. Everything was going so well, wasn't it? He wants the Montoyas back but maybe he can't. Never again, not after everyone else. Not after the French couple, and the ghost hunters, and the sightseers, all changing him from his original tabula rasa he was born into this apartment as. The thought depresses him, but it feels accurate. But Jack... he deserves this home, doesn't he? It's silent and safe, if only without Gabe.

 

Jack is less animated when he sees him again. He wanders into the bedroom without that attentiveness Gabe admired. His stormy eyes focus on the backpack but nothing else. Gabe quickly moves out of the room, repelled by his fear he’ll accidentally have another attack, or worse, cause one.

He’s back in the open living room and kitchen. The cans are off the floor and squirreled away in the cabinets, as are the other groceries Jack had brought. He finds a corner and counts the bumps on the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey i decided not to do any additional warning because i felt like nothing is very graphic, but if that was a mistake, pls pls pls pls tell me. also reminder that gabe is really mentally :( at this point, so he is an unreliable narrator. don't let his self hate get ya tricked, i love him.
> 
> and thanks for the response!!!! im really glad cuz this is honestly a fic so dear to my heart since it's been technically in the making for years!! also i forgot to do this on the last chapter but you can find me on tumblr [@riza-k (main)](http://riza-k.tumblr.com/) or [@sunnytilmae (sideblog)](http://sunnytilmae.tumblr.com/)
> 
> also also, i don't know how long this fic is lmao so yeah it's probably gonna be 5-7 chapters now. i thought this chapter would be a lot longer but this feels like a good place to end it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3/4

He counts the dots on the ceiling, and when he turns back to the apartment, the shadows have moved.

Gabe must have blanked out. It happens often, to the point he can predict them and allow them to happen.

But sometimes he ends up in a dreamstate. In the beginning this was not the case. He would just see a bright light seared into his eyes, and he thought it was heaven. Now he thinks it was nothing.

His dream-like states are vivid with memories. He likes the simple ones. He watches black hands handle the stove and he can’t turn his head. His hand is tangled in a skirt. The pot smells good and the kitchen feels sticky with steam. He’s too short to see what’s cooking.

Sometimes he’s surrounded by this repetitive image. Meals from his past sound him, push him into a corner if he lets them. But if he’s quiet and he lets these visions unfold, it calms him, rocking him like a child’s cradle. They put him to gentle lull like a docile animal.

It’s frightening in its own sense, one day his adoration for his memories might outweigh his contempt, and he’ll lose himself from the world. He hates them for how alien they are, loves them for how real he is in them.

Today, he sees Jack’s face as it smiles, frowns, stares, and blinks and blinks and blinks. Jack’s face circle him, wall him in. A disproportionate number blink, those crystal blue eyes a little too left center to be on him.

He calls to the faces and Jack does not acknowledge him.

Then Gabe reaches out, touches a face, and Jack jerks back in shock. They make eye contact for the first time and the illusion shatter.

 

 

Jack’s third day repeats like the first, except quiet, stilted, and Gabe doesn’t allow himself to watch. Gabe misses the beginning of yesterday like something awful. The actual inhabitant checks over the premise and goes into the living room. Gabe’s hovers in the corner, not cowering but waiting. He exhales loudly.

“Everything’s fine,” Jack says quietly to himself. “I’m okay.”

He’s murmuring to himself but it’s louder than usual. Pale blue eyes sweep across the room as if searching for something. They don’t linger on Gabriel but he nods to himself as if he confirmed something.

“I need to shave.” He continues, turning heel and heading back to the bathroom. This piques Gabe’s interest enough to lure him from his spot between the vents. The patchy beard is cute, but Gabe is curious to see him clean shaven.

He opens the medicine cabinet for a disposable razor and, after a moment of consideration, shaving cream.

Jack splashes water on his face. He rubs shaving cream on but Gabe can tell it’s not enough.

It’s not enough. He knows this. He recalls rubbing minty foam on brown skin with darker brown stubble. Doing this over and over again. The patting of unsure fingers as his first hairs push through his upperlip. The ruggedness when he allows them to grow across his face and fill out further than the uneven puberty beard. The mourning of his gone beard when he joins the military. The routine glide of a razor over soft hairs that have not been given the chance to grow through.

The flashes are exhilarating. He accounts his memories before he realizes Jack is talking to himself again.

“You’ve got this, Morrison. A solid support system. An apartment of your own. A stable life. Lock your shit down, you can do this.” He’s firm and Gabe gives him a thumbs up. He can’t see himself in the mirror but he tries to project good vibes for the man.

He wipes down his face and is nearly out of the bathroom for where ever he was heading. A job? Ana’s?

Regardless, Gabe calls out, “Good luck.”

Jack flinches.

Gabe is as worried as he is amazed. His heart pounds needlessly in his chest.

Jack’s hand on the doorknob immediately tightens and he looks around wildly. In a few strides, he’s covered the entire apartment. He stands in the middle of the living room and does one more turn around. He closes his eyes and breathes through his nose and out his mouth. Every breath passes like a countdown.

But Gabe needs to try again. By God, does he need this.

“Can you hear me?”

Jack runs out the apartment.

Gabe obsesses over the response. His malice and his accidents, he understands. These moments are when his ghastly hands can reach beyond his dimension and interact with the physical world. It is not a satisfactory experience, as he must surrender himself to his subconscious to be part of the Earth.

But Jack is like Anders in more than his protective gaze. Whatever grace brought Gabe to Anders’ eyes that day must be presenting his voice to Jack.

When he returns, Gabe will have a conversation with him.

 

 

The door bursts open when Jack returns, and he enters the apartment speaking. “I’m not crazy.”

Jack settles into the kitchen two steps from the doorway. He repeats it several times and nods to himself when Gabe is silent, like he won an argument. Though saying you’re not crazy again and again to apparently yourself seems contradictory.

But there’s something in Jack’s tone, in his stillness, that tells Gabe his joke would fall flat. A shine in Jack’s eyes says the answer was once _yes you are_. It’s been a day, and Gabe knows nothing about Jack except he’s alone, paranoid, and a little banged up.

Gabe can finally interact with someone, someone who’s actually real and not dying, but Jack’s face from last night flashes in his mind. The memory is a ghost of his own--a warning of what would happen if he couldn’t control himself.

“I heard you, and you pushed my cans on the ground, and you’re probably listening right now. I think. Maybe? Fuck,” he pauses in his rant and exhales, “what am I even talking about. Fuck you. Fuck me! I’m yelling at a ghost!”

He seems stark mad as one of his hands pushes against his forehead, barely off center so the palm lays fully on his scar.

“No, I’m not. It’s… wow.” The tiredness in his blue eyes are hidden when he closes them. The deep but gentle rhythm of his breathing is too delicate to break for Gabe to interject.

“I actually had plans today.” He finally says, then looks consideringly at the door. He pushes himself away from the laminated countertops and leaves once more.

He returns again, and Jack’s preoccupied by the medium sized box tucked in his arm. He opens it with the jagged side of his keys and rummages through the thin layer of packing peanuts.

It’s personal items like notebooks, frames, and novels. It certainly isn’t enough to personalize a home but Gabe sees enough to conclude that Jack is a sentimental man.

The pictures are mostly young Jack, before the scars or the graying hair. Cocky and happy, either surrounded by friends or by his family if the mass of blonds weren’t hint enough. The pictures are old but none are discolored or creased. Even the photos outside of frames are well preserved with a neat writing on the back.

The items energize Jack. He brings them into the bedroom and goes through the box with enraptured attention. He squirrels them into a corner, his face passive.

 

 

Jack reads that night.

He’ll stand against the counter and flip through the pages of _Needful Things_. Before starting, he muses that he never finished the book when he was younger. Gabe sits close enough he can read as well, sometimes leaning into the man’s body. Jack shivers and continues to read.

He speaks fluidly but firmly and Gabe wonders for –th time if they ever crossed paths in the military. And more curiously, why is he reading aloud.

Gabe dispels any ideas from his mind and concentrates on the low tones of Jack’s voice.

He’s stops mid-chapter and goes into the bedroom to nap. Gabe is anxious to continue. In his gut, he needs to know what happens to Nettie. The spine is already worn to the point it stays open on any paged, a perk of reading used yellowing books.

But Gabe finds his curiosity unbearable and he reaches towards the book. The book doesn’t move but he tries again, thinking about Jack and how his hands easily turned the page. He focuses it, uses the strength those gnarled hands displayed, and he reaches forward. The page trembles, like a gust of wind found itself under it, lifts it halfway, and it falls the rest of the way forward. And he flips another and another and tries to touch other things but can’t, even when he’s angry that he can’t. So he goes back to the page he was on and reads.

When Jack wakes up, Gabe is two chapters past. He would’ve gotten further but his fingers spasm and pages stick and he himself is so tired, but it’s that thankful tiredness. It’s an ache he hasn’t felt in a long time and he wants to try more. He rereads the the latest paragraph until his eyes blur.

He forgets about the resolution to allow Jack’s denial when he hears Jack curse. He grabs the book, and shuffles through the pages until he finds his spot. He breathes deeply and closes his eyes, pushing _Needful Things_ against his chest, and mouths _Not crazy_.

 

 

Jack is absolutely ancient when it comes to technology. His tv is an old box Olivia would have brought a sledgehammer to. According to his bragging with Ana, it’s a freebie he found on Craigslist. When it’s on, it buzzes a high pitched whistle that Jack can’t hear. Other than that, it’s the only personal tech he has outside of his phone.

That is, until Jack receives a box in the mail. From: Mercy. To: Jack. He looks puzzled, and opens it warily with the jagged edge of his keys. The caution fades when he pulls out a Walkman cd player and a set of speakers. Underneath them are a small collection of cds in paper sleeves.

He pulls out his phone and promptly leaves without taking anything.

He leaves the box closed, the cardboard folds cover everything and shadows anything Gabe might peak at through the cracks. Gabe can’t open the box, even with his new book skills. Jack returns soon. He discreetly wipes at his eyes but a soft and genuine smile is on his face.

Jack listens to rock, which is a beautiful change from the house music the Montoya girls enjoyed. Two or three songs in and Gabe has spent it bobbing his head amiably, enjoying the soft growl of the singers’ voices. But a song comes on. Not even a word, but the first two seconds of familiarity click like a key twist.

For a moment, he’s nauseous as he remembers libraries of music. It floods into his memories, washing over him. These are moments that shaped him. They fill his mind like concrete, giving form to a foundation of who he might have been.

He sees lines of fellow cadets, their cadence louder than the pounding of his heart or the hurt in his legs. He sees late nights strumming and stumbling through chords with a guitar caged between lanky arms. He sees headphones in while sitting on a rooftop, watching the empty street and wondering where he belonged. He sees the wheel of his car, blasting his radio through rolled down windows, and Gabe’s singing along, his voice cracking and out of tune, but it’s the 90’s again so it’s not embarrassing even when he pulls up next to a bench with old men rolling their eyes.

He wonders if Jack listens to grunge.

“ _When you were here before, couldn't look you in the eye,”_

When he sings along, Jack flinches but doesn’t hesitate when he sings along. Not jokingly, not quietly, but like Gabe had motioned at him expectedly and who was Jack to deny.

_“What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here,”_

It’s surprising how easily the words slide off his tongue. It builds inside of him like waves, like high tide waves eating beach sand. And Jack responds likewise, enthusiastic and louder with every line.

The empty room is bigger than before and Jack easily slides through it. He fills the room, not overtaking it but as a spotlight. He stomps through the living room into the kitchen and back until they’re lying on the ground yelling at the white dots on the ceiling.

Their jam session ends several songs into the playlist. The speakers are full volume. They’re belting out the chorus of Simple Man, a cover that is unfamiliar to him but he feels it in his core nonetheless, when the neighbors below knock angrily on their ceiling.

Jack jumps in surprise and nearly rips the wire connecting the CD player and the speakers.

It’s silent. Gabe holds his breath.

Then Jack throws his head back and laughs. He smiles like he knows Gabe is there, and is grateful he’s there. An arm tosses over his blue eyes, hiding the mirth he desperately wants to see.

They could have shared their early twenties just like this.

Jack wouldn’t be among his faceless friends, he’d be someone important. He imagines him in place of that boy he’d hide away with in Camp Pendleton.

Their heads nearly knock together while sharing a set of earbuds. His skin flushing pink as Gabe moved to lay his fresh-shaven chin on his sharp shoulder.  What lies beyond the door is heavy on their minds, but not as heavy as the atmosphere when their eyes meet.

Gabe nearly nuzzles the shoulder as a guitar riff played between them. It could be ignored as overtly friendly, but then a hand, heavy but careful, moves on top his knee. The other cadet turns his head towards him carefully, intently.

But that wasn’t Jack. It was a boy whose name escapes him. But Jack doesn’t. He lays his arm out, let’s it sink through the body and delights in the shiver.

Instead of a memory, he has this now, relishing Jack’s laugh as it echoes through the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two different fics updated??? my life's a mess so im just trying to do something nice for myself while i fix it lol. RIP the southern swamp aesthetics in the og draft but the spirit lives on! 
> 
> I was really apprehensive about continuing this story because i did literally no research whatsoever on ptsd, or solitary confinement (aka what im trying to emanate in gabe's experience) but this isn't about jack (he's actually doing pretty well at this point) and i like gabe too much to rewrite him. so this is just a quick sorry for any discrepancy but this is more a cathartic experience for me than anything else. 
> 
> They were listening to Shinedown’s cover of Simple Man, which is the only version to listen to.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading this far!!!! love all of you for leaving kudos and responses. You are the best!!!! xoxoxoxo


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